Sam Harris and J. Krishnamurti - some commonality.

 

I've been using the Waking Up app recently, and am enjoying it for its approach to meditation, nonduality, and mindfulness. Sam Harris is a great speaker and gets his points across in simple, easy-to-understand language that can make a difference to someone's day in terms of how they perceive things and approach living a more examined life.

I noticed quite a few similarities between his approach and J. Krishnamurti's approach. Some of the language also crosses over, such as 'choiceless awareness', and espousing a kind of mindfulness that involves less effort and more on the natural happenings in the moment.

Of course, there's some differences. JK was against all structure and training (which isn't very helpful for beginners), while SH delivers a structured approach and philosophy that deconstructs itself as one progresses (similar to how Buddhism approaches things, in particular the nondual Buddhist paths).

Here's a few points from G:

You are spot on in noticing the connection. There is a significant philosophical overlap between Sam Harris and J. Krishnamurti, and Harris has explicitly engaged with Krishnamurti’s work, though he doesn't typically cite him as his primary teacher.

Here is the breakdown of the link between the two and the extent to which Harris "studied" him.

1. The Link: Shared Core Philosophy

The reason you see so much commonality is that both men are proponents of secular non-duality. They both argue that you can access profound self-transcendence without buying into religious dogma, mythology, or rituals.

• The Illusion of the Self: This is the strongest link. Krishnamurti famously taught that the "thinker is the thought"—that there is no separate entity controlling the mind.¹ Sam Harris focuses heavily on this same concept (anatta), often using the phrase "the self is an illusion" and pointing out that there is no "rider in the head."

• Choiceless Awareness vs. Mindfulness: Krishnamurti spoke of "choiceless awareness"—observing the mind without judgment or the desire to change it. This is very similar to the "open monitoring" or "non-dual mindfulness" (Dzogchen/Mahamudra) that Harris teaches in his Waking Up app.

• Rejection of Authority: Krishnamurti famously dissolved the Order of the Star, claiming truth is a pathless land, and cannot be reached through organizations. ³ Harris similarly rejects religious institutions and gurus (despite having had teachers himself), advocating for a rational, empirical approach to spirituality.⁴

2. Did Sam Harris study Krishnamurti?

Sam Harris has almost certainly "studied" Krishnamurti in the sense of reading him and analyzing his talks, but he was not a direct student in the way he was with his primary Dzogchen teachers (like Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche).

• Curatorial Endorsement: Harris considers Krishnamurti's teachings valuable enough that he featured a collection of Krishnamurti’s talks on his Waking Up app. This is a major endorsement, implying he views Krishnamurti as a valid pointer toward the truth of non-duality.

• Discussion with Jack Kornfield: Harris has discussed Krishnamurti with meditation teacher Jack Kornfield.⁵ In these contexts, they often analyze Krishnamurti’s approach—specifically noting that while Krishnamurti was brilliant, he could sometimes be frustratingly intellectual or abstract for beginners, lacking a "method" (which Krishnamurti did on purpose).

Summary

While Harris’s primary spiritual lineage comes from Dzogchen (Tibetan Buddhism) and Advaita Vedanta (specifically H.W.L. Poonja), Krishnamurti is a close philosophical cousin.

If you enjoy the intersection of these two, you are essentially picking up on the "Direct Path" teachings. The idea that freedom is available now in the nature of awareness, rather than something you earn after years of practice.

Eckhart Tolle - Some further notes and recommendations for approaching his teachings - The Power of Now and related teachings.

 

Here are some further notes on Eckhart Tolle's material and teachings. I'm writing this for those attacted to his teachings, and the introductory ideas expressed in his books, talks and audio sessions. There are some who may stay with Eckhart's teachings for quite some time, or indefinately, others may receive the inner guidance to move on however, to deeper work and more thorough teachings and approaches to 'enlightenment' outside of what Eckhart teaches.

Key issues and things to note:

- Eckhart does a great job in all his books, talks, lectures etc. in detailing the issues around thinking, self-ing, conceptualising, and habitually thinking about the past and future. He also does a great job in examining how the ego works, the "pain body", and personal and social issues in general as a result of this. HOWEVER, the solutions that he provides are just too surface level to do any of this justice. He makes a great case for change, he explains the "what", and the "why" perfectly.. but the "how" is not sufficient or deep enough. Just provided snippets of approaches, or a shotgun approach in doing things such as watching thoughts at one point, or going into bodily sensations at another, or staying present, etc. without any structured framework or approach isn't going to cut it.

As a result, many of his students are stuck asking the same questions over and over, and left trying to work out how to meaningfully and effectively put these tools and lack of approach into practice.

- Eckhart doesn't openly acknowledge his teachers and the sources of the material that he puts forth as his own.. based on some magical awakening event story of what occurred for him one night. If we dig deeper and look at some of his source material, such as Barry Long's teachings, A Course in Miracles, and bits and pieces from other mystics and teachers (more recently in Advaita), it becomes really obvious that these previous sources are almost taken word for word with a slight variation in language. The "fountain of all knowledge" effect is lessened by this, but it's just more honest. The whole organisation around ET thrives on him being some enlightened teacher who has come up with all of this on his own due to his own awakening that apparently didn't require any pevious work or practice. This just isn't correct, and frankly, is a bit of a red flag.

- Eckhart's teachings have changed over time, according to the various interest and flavour of the month.. lately it's more about awareness, consciousness, and neo-advaita type pointing, whereas originally is was more about mindfulness, concentration, and awareness being focused attention in the body or on the mind stream. This is sort of interesting, but prompts one to wonder why the change, and why the need to appeal to the mass audience (apart from the monetary advantage of doing so). Why the need for such a massive organisation built up around ET The Teacher, if the whole point of the message is to be nothing, nobody and live with as little structure and baggage as possible?

- ET's ideas about 'enlightenment' as just too simplistic. He mainly defines 'enlightenment' as disidentification with the mind, and the mind-made self. Further, he makes it sound like no big deal.. so we can all quite easily make it 'enlightenment', without having to do any of the usual hard yards that progressive paths have stressed over the centuries such as conduct, ethics, developing concentration, developing sustained mindfulness, having devotion to the teacher/path, etc. etc. It's all reduced to just living 'in the now', stopping thinking, and feeling/dissolving the pain body (with quite minimalistic instructions, mostly taken from other approaches that use somatic work or body scanning etc.)

Taking the above into account, here's some GOOD material that can assist with the gaps in his teaching.. look for these audio lectures if you can find them, since they're the closest to what we might consider "meditation" or structure, which is clearly lacking in most of the talks, books, etc.

Recommended material:

1. Gateways to the Now -- an audio with 3 parts that goes for around an hour (with another hour of music), that details 3 ways to enter 'the now', being via the inner body, silence, and acceptance

2. Practicing the Power of Now - which has taken out the practical parts of The Power of Now, and made these parts into a manual so to speak. Although the practices even here aren't deep enough to likely effect permanent change or insight, they're all in one spot at least for review and consumption.

3. Essential Meditations with Eckhart Tolle - this 7 hour audio compilation is one of the better ones that focuses more on the idea of meditation and how to implement some of the teachings and philosophy that ET talks about elsewhere

4. Meditations for a New Earth - Although this is mostly given by Kim Eng, it does contain some good structured practices that can be used daily to give life to the information presented elsewhere.

5. Non-live material - When starting off, leave out the live audience material and hours and hours of live talks.. preferring the specifically given content and books such as Power of Now, Stillness Speaks, or the above audio lectures. The live talks tend to cater for large audiences attending a huge talk who are looking for a bit of entertainment and a bit of spiritual chit chat, and thus the live talks tend to contain mainly teaching stories and surface level pointers that are repeated throughout all the talks over time. The non-live material is more structured, and also was created for a specific purpose and thus it's more effective at delivering the message.

Overall:

Eckhart Tolle and his teaching material contains a lot of benefit in terms of providing an easy to understand philosophy around topics such as mindfulness, self, ego, emotional pain, and the ideas behind why and what is needed to be transcended for spiritual growth and liberation. There's tonnes of free content available online as well, which is generous. This makes ET appealing to beginners on the path, and also those interested in spiritual talk, conversation and entertaining ideas around the path.

However, the "how" isn't developed deep enough, and the teachings generally remain on the surface, in an attempt to cater for as wide an audience as possible. Because of the sheer volume of content available, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff is also a challenge for beginners with these teachings. As such, many seekers have encountered ET's ideas, and agree on their value, but end up confused, or doubful as to where and how to EXACTLY implement these teachings to give lasting change and the sort of 'enlightenment' that is promised in much of the talks and books.

These teachings are worth delving into, trying, checking out, and confirming for oneself.. but do keep in mind that they're more of a starting point on the path rather than a destination or complete approach.